Mom & pop marketplace kravve.co raises US$306k via ECF on pitchIN

• Covid-19 has pushed small businesses over technology tipping point
• Aims to be household name globally, top of mind in homemade biz

Kravve.co a software-as-a-service enabled marketplace that allows home cooks and small food businesses sell their hand-made food and groceries online, announced today that it has successfully raised US$306,206 (RM1.255 million).

It attracted 159 investors with 11.11% of total equity offered through pitchIN, Malaysia’s leading equity crowdfunding (ECF) platform. The highest individual investment value was US$54,270 (RM222,500).

Founded two years ago, kravve claims to be the largest moms and pops food and groceries marketplace in Malaysia with over 1,000 sellers across the country and 70,000 users, to date.

With their marketplace, they have leveled the playing field between small sellers and supermarkets, providing local sellers an equal opportunity to get discovered. Despite the pandemic, the company grew 10x from its consumer facing business. With confidence bolstered by this funding round, it is targeting 10x over the mid term.

“We help automate the manual selling process end-to-end, turning a 16 step process into just two steps, with automation. This way moms and pops have more time to make their products, and sell more. We are empowering micro-sellers to make a full income from home, with a website simple enough to create in 5 minutes, that comes with full ecommerce capability,” says Teh Yong Lin (pic, right), CEO & cofounder of kravve.co, who launched the company in 2017 with cofounder, Jean Heah (pic, left).

Teh adds, “The pandemic was definitely a factor in accelerating digital transformation. Covid-19 has pushed small businesses over the technology tipping point and transformed their businesses forever. With our platform, they are able to service more clients than they can ever imagine before and solve their headaches of having to manually handle each order that comes in.”

Joshua Liew, owner and cofounder of Espressolab Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd who has been utilising the kravve.co platform since last March when the first MCO hit, explains, “A majority (99%) of my online sales fulfillment is with

kravve.co as compared to using WhatsApp previously. It has taken a load off my shoulders with the user friendly and easy to manage platform with easy access payment gateways for the consumers.”

kravve.co also targets for their sellers to increase their sales by bridging the corporate procurement gap with the platform. Through kravve.co, corporations can procure from thousands of local sellers across the country. Their clients range from small-medium enterprise, GLCs, conglomerate and Fortune 500 multinational companies.

“With the success of our fund raising exercise, we are positive with our future expansion plans which includes an allocation of 20% of funds to cater to our first foray beyond the Malaysian shores into Singapore, 35% on marketing efforts and 45% to be allocated towards building the manpower strength. Next on our agenda is to work towards being the leading impact driven food tech company that focuses on empowering micro sellers across Southeast Asia, targeting 10,000 of micro food businesses to come onboard,” adds Teh.

One of the investors, Jason Foo Khee, Long Founder and Executive Chairman of 81 Group commented, “I invested because of the people in kravve.co. These people have great ambition and enthusiasm in pursuit of their dreams and I strongly believe that they are embarking on the future of business, that is digital. It is my aspiration to see them grow to become a household name globally and be top of mind when one thinks about homemade business.”

“pitchIN congratulates kravve.com on its funding”, said Kashminder Singh, the Chief Strategy Officer at pitchIN. “Their campaign was very well backed. We look forward to seeing kravve.co carrying out its expansion plans and becoming a leading platform in South East Asia. kravve.co’s successful fundraising will have a knock-on effect as it will in turn enable more micro businesses to grow their own ventures on the kravve platform.”

In March, 2018 kravve.co received US$100,000 (RM409,867) from an accelerator program by SOSV, a global venture capital firm based out of San-Francisco, the first Malaysian startup that managed to seal the deal and the first-ever Malaysian company that was accepted into the Mobile-Only Accelerator (MOX).

SOSV invests in 150 companies every year through their accelerator programs. Closer to home, kravve.co has caught the attention and has been invested in by 1337 Ventures as part of the Khazanah Entrepreneurship Outreach (KNEO) programme. In 2019, kravve.co excelled at the SITEC Selangor Accelerator Programme and emerged as a top 10 winner.